Key Takeaways

• Audi needed to promote its ‘Black Edition’ models to increase volume sales overall.
• PHD used rhythms planning to influence customers at key moments across print titles.
• The campaign saw a 136% increase in people using Audi’s car configuration tool for these models and Audi doubled its order bank.

One page summary

Client Quote

“It’s well-known we do very good above-the-line campaigns, but we looked at our tactical work and thought, hand on heart, could we say we were defying category conventions? No, we couldn’t. And so we were really excited and pleased with the Black Edition campaign, not only for the end results it yielded for the business, but for the dynamic framework that was pulled together in response to this brief that will help to shape all Audi campaigns going forward. The Black Edition campaign was a strong example of the standard you would expect from the Audi brand experience, regardless of what stage in your car purchasing journey you are.”

Anna Russell, National Brand and Retail Marketing Lead, Audi UK

The Challenge

In 2018, Audi’s priority was to increase the volume of cars being sold through their retail network, which meant driving desire for all cars at all different stages of their lifecycle, not just new launches. To build their order bank and create a strong start to 2019, Audi launched a suite of highly desirable and competitively priced ‘Black Edition’ models which needed promoting in an engaging way.

The Plan/Execution

PHD made the case to Audi to utilise magazines in a standout way, raising awareness and desire of the Black Edition models that made people pay attention. Research showed that people are overwhelmed during the information gathering phase as the average car buying journey involves 900+ digital touchpoints. PHD’s approach was to influence customers at key moments by reducing the amount of choice they face, by keeping Audi present throughout the journey, showing the most engaging and useful content at each stage.

PHD used rhythms planning, using different data sources to identify key cultural moments to talk to the target audience, making them pay disproportionate attention. This included creating bespoke rugby creative to run in specialist magazine publications like Rugby Magazine and within sport sections within the national print titles to mark the All Blacks playing England for the first time in four years. The creative described the Audi Q7 as tall, dark and extra handsome, much like a rugby player.

The rhythms planning approach also used Black Friday as an opportunity to talk about Audi’s competitively priced models in a charming way and cut through. In addition, PHD challenged in market-leading auto titles to ‘paint It black’ with media firsts – taking over their titles and key sections within their magazine to showcase the Black Edition range. In a media first, Audi partnered with Top Gear to wrap their magazine in a matt black finish. The coverwrap ‘welcomed people to the dark side’ with an advertorial inside showcasing the style credentials of the Black Edition models in an engaging way.

The Results

PHD outperformed KPIs for this campaign and saw a 136% increase in people using Audi’s car configuration tool for these models and achieved Audi’s key objective for this campaign by doubling its order bank.